On November 18, 1978, 918 members of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult died in Jonestown, Guyana, in the single largest loss of American civilian lives in a deliberate act before 9/11. From the moment media coverage of the massacre began, much of the reporting has characterized the event as a …
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It’s been a long, complicated journey for Rachel Jeffs Blackmore since escaping the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous Mormon cult led by her father, Warren Jeffs. Blackmore, who recently celebrated her 40th birthday, left her old life behind nearly a decade ago and is now …
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When I was a kid growing up in the Berkeley flatlands, I used to play with a couple of neighbor kids, Tony and his little brother, Mikey. One day in 1979, two men got out of a car, approached Tony and Mikey’s house, and beat another man with a club. …
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When Amy Carlson’s mummified body was found in April 2021, it looked like a blue skeleton. It was also in a sleeping bag wrapped in Christmas lights. Her followers in the Love Has Won cult were apparently still waiting for the Galactics, a group of dead luminaries led by Robin …
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The leaders of OneTaste, a sexual wellness organization and so-called “orgasm cult” that briefly enjoyed popularity in the mid-2010s, have been charged with sex trafficking, according to court documents. Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz, the former CEO and head of sales for the now-defunct startup OneTaste, are being sued by …
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Every now and then a subject comes along that seemed compelling enough to the right decision-makers to somehow become the focus of multiple projects. Seeing the competition on the horizon, producers and distributors press their pedal to the metal instead of ceding ground. This is how we end up with …
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The eerie, extremely-online world of the the cult Love Has Won, and its founder Amy “Mother God” Carlson, are getting the full HBO docuseries treatment. The new trailer for Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God starts at the only place to start with the Carlson/Love Has Won story: …
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You might remember them asking for donations at the airport, passing out spiritual pamphlets or chanting hymns in saffron-colored sheets on the streets. Less is known about the Hare Krishna Movement’s ties to counterfeit memorabilia, the sexual assault of minors, and the murder of two former devotees. Hare Krishna, a …
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A combination of modern loneliness and New Age woo-woo has convinced a great many people not merely that they need a soulmate, but that, through some unwritten promise of the universe, they are owed one. This belief, along with the more modest goal of a quick hookup, has kept countless …
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There are movie stars and then there is Tom Cruise. Forty years a star, enough classics to make listing even a few here pointless, and, now, someone who can stake a legitimate claim to saving Hollywood (or at least jolting some life into that lazy, bloated monstrosity). Last year’s Top …
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